[FEL-L] Development has exotic cat owner's claws out

[SOUTHZOO at aol.com]

Development has exotic cat owner's claws out
By _Tim Pallesen_ 
(http://www.palmbeachpost.com/greenacres/content/neighborhood/greenacres/epaper/2006/08/02/mailto:tim_pallesen@pbpost.com)  
Neighborhood Post Staff Writer 
Wednesday, August 02, 2006 
Exotic cats are trying to hold their ground against the new housing  
developers at Gulfstream Polo. 
A sign on Patricia Garvey's gate warns of a leopard. She also admits to  
housing a cougar and a lynx on the 5 acres where she operates stables for polo  
ponies. 
Garvey refused to sell her property when the developers moved in. Under the  
county's development rules, the buyers of 866 new mini-mansions around her 
must  be notified that dangerous class one exotic animals will be their 
neighbors. The  regulatory category includes lions, tigers and Garvey's pet cats. 
Developers will ask county commissioners on Aug. 24 for site-plan approval to 
 build the 866 homes on polo fields and horse farms that now surround the  
cats. 
Garvey, fearing for the lives of her pets, doesn't want the  notifications. 
"People will come out at night and shoot the cats in their cages," a troubled 
 Garvey warned the county's zoning commission last month. 
"These are personal pets. Nobody sees them," she said. "You're putting me in  
a lot of danger. You're setting up my pets to be shot." 
Commissioners told Garvey that laws can't allow her exotic cats to be a  
secret. They advised her to get an attorney before county commissioners meet on  
Aug. 24. 
Garvey cares for 42 polo ponies at her farm during the winter season. She  
hopes to continue stabling ponies for Wellington's horse owners after Gulfstream 
 Polo closes next year. 
Construction also causes Garvey to worry. "Access will be blocked for days at 
 a time. How can I make a living being able to get 40-foot horse trailers 
down  the road?" she asked zoning commissioners. 
She also noted that a dump truck needs to get through to remove horse manure  
from her stables once a week. 
Despite Garvey's concerns, zoning commissioners on July 8 unanimously  
recommended approval for the Gulfstream Polo housing developments. 
Westbrooke Homes seeks to build 442 homes on 221 acres. Developer Brian  
Tuttle wants approval for another 424 homes on 212 adjacent acres. 
County traffic engineers say vehicle trips generated by the new developments  
will cause added congestion at the intersection of Lake Worth and Jog roads,  
which is already at capacity. 
• 
The Florida Department of Community Affairs is asking why county  
commissioners granted high-density zoning for the owner of 40 acres south of  Southern 
Boulevard along Jog Road. 
Byron Cheney Russell, president of the Riviera Beach-based food distributer  
Cheney Brothers Inc., got the zoning change despite objections from Greenacres 
 and the county's staff and zoning commission. 
The area south of the West Palm Beach Canal along Gun Club and Pioneer roads  
has been zoned primarily as residential estate, limiting density to one house 
 per acre. 
The DCA, in a June 23 report, said county commissioners "failed to  
demonstrate that the current land use is inappropriate" when they approved the  switch 
to high-density zoning. 
The Greenacres City Council opposes the zoning change, because it will lead  
to more commercialization and increases in density farther south on Jog  Road.
        

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